No GUI on bootup (sometimes) - GTX 460 - Linux Mint 14

[zektor]

Forgive me if this had been posted elsewhere, but I am running into an odd problem on occasion with the latest Linux Mint 14, my NVidia GTX 460, and "loosing" GUI on bootup. I am running the 304.43 driver that is the recommended driver from within the installer in Mint 14.

The issue is that sometimes, after a reboot, the desktop shows up and then dissapears with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. Pressing ALT-F8 allows the desktop to come back and all is fine afterward. This does not happen all of the time...probably every fifth or sixth reboot at best. I tried installing the latest driver from Nvidia, and after that install, the same issue occured every time the system was rebooted. Each time the GUI would come up for a second or two, and the same deal. ALT-F8 brings it back and all is fine.

Somewhat annoying. Does anyone have any clue as to why this is happing? I did not experience it at all in Mint 13, nor in 12 or 11. Mint 14 is the best version to date (I am running the MATE version btw, 64-bit) and I am loving it. Would just love to squash this minor annoyance tho Any ideas/help is greatly appreciated!

[zektor]

Well, guess I'll reply to myself here as it appears nobody else has experienced this (or nobody with a GTX 400 series card running Mint 14 MATE x64?)

Anyway, I am able to reproduce this effect in the MATE version daily (multiple times). I bit the bullet and installed the Cinnamon release, and can confirm that it does NOT happen here. Something has changed in Mate since the last release that is causing this....I just wish I could track it down. Oh well...

[davtom.net]

I am running Mint 14 32-bit with Cinnamon with an AMD graphics card (HD6770) and I experienced the same problem as you when booting yesterday.

I only tried twice; immediately after installation, which was fine, and perhaps an hour or so later.

I got the GUI up and running by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F8.

[zektor]

Interesting. Are you getting "KVM: disabled by BIOS" errors on bootup? I noticed these and enabled Intel Virtualization in the BIOS (ASUS P8P67 Pro rev 3.1 MB) and the errors went away. I did this unfortunately after formatting and loading Mint 14 Cinnamon x64. I have yet to experience the issue in this version of Mint.

However, you are running 32 bit Cinnamon. If you are getting the KVM error messages (because it is not enabled in BIOS) I wonder if this is causing this weird issue? Let me know.

I was actually getting other odd things in the Mate version, like hard drives disappearing, I/O r/w errors on large file copies...weird stuff that is not occuring in Cinnamon. But maybe enabling KVM fixed it? Why all of a sudden is this required to be enabled anyway? I used to only have to enable this in order to run 64 bit virtualization software (like 64 bit OS in Virtualbox). Does not make sense why Mint is now erroring (as of 14) when it sees it is disabled...

[davtom.net]

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm afraid the problem just went away. I did nothing to fix it, so I can't shed any light upon the issue.

David